Hydridomagnesium chloride, also known as chloromagnesium hydride, is a compound which has utility as an intermediate in the preparation of complex products, such as chloromagnesium aluminum hydride and chloromagnesium borohydride, and as a reducing agent for organic compounds such as ketones.
It is known that hydridomagnesium chloride can be prepared by sintering anhydrous magnesium chloride with magnesium hydride at high temperatures; and it is also known that the use of a tetrahydrofuran solvent permits its synthesis under mild conditions, as in Ashby et al., Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 99, No. 1, 1977, pp. 310-311, Ashby et al., Inorganic Chemistry, Vol. 16, No. 8, 1977, pp. 2082-2085, Bogdanovic et al., Z. Naturforsch., Vol. 39B, 1984, pp. 1001-1003, and Canadian Patent 1,135,480 (Bogdanovic).
Although each of the known methods of synthesizing hydridomagnesium chloride under mild conditions can be advantageously employed when it is desired to prepare and use the product in solution form, none of them is suitable for the production of solid HMgCl. As indicated in the references, it has not been found possible to isolate hydridomagnesium chloride from tetrahydrofuran.